Pages

Friday, June 1, 2012

I've spoken out against the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG onseveraloccasions on this blog. My basis for my objections was my reading of the playtest rules.

As much as I didn't seem to like DCC when I first encountered it, the more I read about it these days (like all the reviews linked on Goodman's DCC page) the more I want to own it.

This might have been a case of "methinks the gamer doth protest too much" all along.

A man is allowed to change his mind.

I still have some issues, but I guess they're trivial when it comes right down to it. For instance:

The statement "Adventure as 1974 intended you to" is pretty dumb. A year doesn't intend anything for you. It's an abstract concept, not a person. It would have been more accurate to say "Adventure like it's 1974."

Ok, if DCC is supposed to adhere more closely to D&D's Appendix N roots, then what's with the elves, dwarves, and halflings? Granted, you can ignore these classes in a campaign if you want to run, say, a game set in Hyboria, but still...

I'm still not thrilled about the Zocchi dice thing. If I ever do play the game, I'll probably be using alternative methods for getting Zocchi results from the familiar polyhedrals I've been using for decades. I guess I'm just an old dog that can't learn new dice tricks.

Once again, these are nitpicks, not major problems. But Mr. Goodman himself still seems very self-congratulatory (like in this interview). I agree to a point with his sentiment that he created the game for himself, but I don't know...he just comes off as very full of himself. But whatever, you can't judge a man in his entirety based off of some words you read on the Internet. So I'm trying to calm down my judgmental stance here. Hey, he's nothing if not confident, and can I really fault him for that?

And I thought they handled the playtest very well.

I guess I've gotten over the seeming vanity of Mr. Goodman and the hype machine that surrounded the game. I told myself months ago that I would ultimately wait to see the finished product before giving my final verdict on the game.

Perhaps I've been too hasty all along?

Looks like I need to get the damned thing and wrap up my conflicted feelings for DCC, Mr. Goodman, and the company that bears his name. Stay tuned. I may yet become another convert.

UPDATE: Also, I just found this other interview with Joseph Goodman, and this one makes him seem much more human and down-to-earth.